Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

neilchen.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 91 posts

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#81

Post by sodality2 »

SlowTao wrote: post #73
msgodel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd be surprised how a little bit of difficulty can be enough to break binge cycles. I killed both my hackernews and reddit addictions years ago by just adding them to /etc/hosts. It was easy to change and sometimes I did but that was enough that I didn't dwell on those sites anymore. Recently I've written a chrome extension that does this much better. Hopefully it gets approved today or tomorrow. Maybe I'l…

Convenience is the biggest drug of them all, if you can break that then you can go a long way to breaking a habit. Even just putting up minor inconvenience can help slow the habit formed behavior. If you have a food addiction, remove all the pre-packed easy stuff. If you have to cook a meal to get the calories, you now have a step speed bump to the habit. It doesn't mean you cannot eat, it just stops that grab and go…

Similarly, convenience (reducing resistance) is the biggest factor in sticking to positive habits. Here’s an article on applying this to strength training: https://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#82

Post by mrweasel »

msgodel wrote: post #70
dankwizard wrote: post #63

Guarantee the OP used this for a week and never touched it again. Those without self control cannot be trusted if they hold the switch.

I think you'd be surprised how a little bit of difficulty can be enough to break binge cycles. I killed both my hackernews and reddit addictions years ago by just adding them to /etc/hosts. It was easy to change and sometimes I did but that was enough that I didn't dwell on those sites anymore. Recently I've written a chrome extension that does this much better. Hopefully it gets approved today or tomorrow. Maybe I'l…

> I killed both my hackernews and reddit addictions

You can quit your Reddit addiction by commenting on Reddit. Reddits is a hellscape... I'd rather be browsing 4Chan.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#83

Post by hennell »

mrweasel wrote: post #82
msgodel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd be surprised how a little bit of difficulty can be enough to break binge cycles. I killed both my hackernews and reddit addictions years ago by just adding them to /etc/hosts. It was easy to change and sometimes I did but that was enough that I didn't dwell on those sites anymore. Recently I've written a chrome extension that does this much better. Hopefully it gets approved today or tomorrow. Maybe I'l…

> I killed both my hackernews and reddit addictions You can quit your Reddit addiction by commenting on Reddit. Reddits is a hellscape... I'd rather be browsing 4Chan.

Reddit is so dependant on the subs you're in. Some are pretty pleasant, some promote argument, some are just silly, some offer valuable advice. Any sub with too many people tends to deteriorate but there's loads of fun niche subs still.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#84

Post by absurdo »

I have reservations about adding YouTube as it’s got a massive amount of useful content; a little curation and it won’t show you any nonsense. Reddit is a mid-range, so I can understand it. It’s hard to separate the good and the bad there I suppose, especially if you’ve gotten into constantly checking for updates.

But I would almost certainly and without any qualms put HN on the default noallow list. The SNR and potential for learning things is atrocious to nonexistent most of the time - and you can find better sources than HN. No, I’m not joking unfortunately it’s just what the site has become over the years.

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#87

Post by motbus3 »

Blocking JS and cookies related to these sites often work. I got rid of a 'minor' habit of checking social network by simply making it harder for me to access it so I could have time enough to identify I was doing something I shouldn't.

It is a nice tool to have it automatically solved

Re: Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot

#89

Post by quitit »

layer8 wrote: post #79
quitit wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally it comes down to what you value. If you don't actually want to stop, then these opportunities for pause do nothing, because in that pause you reaffirm that you do want to continue the behaviour. This ties into why addiction is so powerful, while many people know their addictions are bad, they enjoy them and don't actually want to stop. I.E. They don't value the results of cessation versus keeping the ad…

Let me try to illustrate: I might want to stop after the "circuit breaker" comes up for the tenth time. But the nine times before are annoying enough that I'll disable it before I reach the tenth time. Maybe not initially, but after a few days. In other words, the friction vs. frequency they exhibit, in conjunction with how easy or difficult they can be turned off, makes them not work for me. And I haven't found anyt…

I do understand your position and reasoning, but I'm hoping to explain that you're asking too much of the system. Nothing is going to overcome your personal willpower, if you want to see that site or load that app, there isn't any local technical solution that is going to stop you.

These systems are trivial to defeat, after all you turned them on, you can just as easily turn them off, but that's not the point at all. It's not meant to be an unsurmountable technical wall. The point is to provide you with a moment to actively think about your actions instead of an autopiloting behaviour that lands you on a website or app that you are trying to avoid using. People who use employ these types of "circuit breakers" do so because they find that they frequently find themselves autopiloting to these services. For these people the circuit breaker is their moment to realise "oh hang on I said I don't want to be doing this while I'm working on my project", rather than "oh this is inconvenient, I'll just disable it for the time being".

The stopping power comes from you, not from the crutch.

Post reply on HN